


Habits and Will

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 03, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5971969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no spoon. Even when it's staring your right in the face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Habits and Will

  
Romance could never be the name of the game.

Friendship was fine, family, coworkers, definitely, but the day the wrong words slipped out, it was all over.

That’s why they were not in love.

She was too young anyway, too abrasive, too everything. There couldn’t have been a more mismatched pairing. It wasn’t meant to be. The Powers would destroy them if they went too far. It could not and would not work.

That’s why love and romance were words strictly verboten in the hotel, in her apartment, in the backseat of his car, in the karaoke bar, everywhere, anywhere. It could never be anything. It wasn’t even a secret. It didn’t exist. Those were the rules, unspoken, not even thought of, but firmly understood.

Tempting fate was not an option, because they didn’t even exist.

But wasn’t that precisely what they were doingg? Every meaningful word left them open. People could talk. People would talk. Wesley and Gunn weren’t blind. The Host demon even had the special inner eye and–

There she was. Waiting.

“I used to know this girl,” he said, sitting down next to her at the counter of the greasy little cafe with the good lattes. She came here a lot because it was cheap and good, even though the counters were chipped formica done in avocado and harvest gold. “She was a real character.”

“As opposed to being a fictional one?” she asked sarcastically. The fluorescent lights were even harsher than her voice, but it didn’t seem to affect her at all, whereas he probably looked the same color as the counter.

“Well, it is LA,” he deadpanned. “You can buy character cheap.”

“Also Gucci sunglasses,” she replied.

He couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be funny or not.

“Heh,” he finally mustered. She looked at him and shook her head.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“What?”

“Your complete lack of a sense of humor,” she said. He smiled for a split second and she smiled back for just as long. He shrugged.

“It’s just like having a phantom hand. It itches even though it’s not there.”

She raised an eyebrow. “If you say so.”

As usual, they were being utterly rude to each other, but that was part of the fun. Romantic, that wasn’t them, not by a longshot. It was just a game. In fact, he and Wes would have made a more romantic couple. She didn’t need him. If he went bad, she would be the first one waiting to kill him.

But that’s why it worked.

Except there was no it.

“I say so,” he replied.

“Isn’t that just like you–witty like a heart attack,” she told him sourly.

“How’s that?”

“As in not witty? At all?”

It hit him like a bag of spoiled blood that she was the habit he couldn’t get rid of, and he didn’t know how it had started. He had known her at her worst. How could it happen? She was Cordelia, for the love of God, spoiled, materialistic, obnoxious queen bitch…

Cordelia.

And that meant something, he didn’t know what, he couldn’t know what. But it was there, inexplicable, indefinable, like the heartbeat he didn’t have in the heart he still needed.

It wasn’t meant to be. There was something intrinsically wrong with the two of them in any way. Ever. He had to keep that in mind.

“Hello, witty like a heart attack?” she asked. “I don’t even have to try anymore, do I?”

“Not for me.”

Her eyes widened momentarily, and then got hard. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, what do you think?” he asked. He could take the out. He could get her to slam him for being stupid, it could just keep going the way it had been going. The it that didn’t exist. There was no it. In fact, there was no they. It wasn’t an out–it was the expected Cordelia response.

Why couldn’t he just get himself out of this situation now?

“I think,” she said. Then she stopped. “Look, forget it. You, you’re just old and obscure and not with it and just forget it.”

“Cordelia.”

“I said just forget it,” she said, standing up. Her face was drained of all color. “You know? You just don’t know how to leave things alone.”

“Cordelia.”

“Don’t talk to me!” she snapped. “This is not real. This isn’t even a this. It’s a bad habit we’re not talking about anymore.”

He slipped. He knew even before he said it that he couldn’t say anything more idiotic and pointless, but he had to say it.

“But I love you.”

He reached out to grab her hand, to tell her something about how it can be all right, how they could be all right even though everything was against them, from God on down the line to Gunn and Wesley, but it would be all right–

There was nothing there and when he looked up to see her eyes, he realized that there would never be anything, because there could never be anything.

“No, you don’t,” she said in a soft, steely voice.

Then she turned and left the restaurant, leaving behind a pair of sunglasses and her double non-fat latte.

And it was over. The way it had to be.

So he paid her bill. He put her sunglasses into his pocket, promising that he would give them back when he saw her at the office again. Then he walked out into the artificial light and kept going until the city swallowed him whole and he was just another person lost in the amorphous emptiness of Los Angeles.

They were not in love.

And never would be.

Simple as that.

 


End file.
